Holiday Wrapping: 7 Powerful Productivity Tips to Help You Wrap Up the year – and Get 2020 Off to a Flying Start

The last couple of weeks of December is the perfect time to take stock – not only of whether you’ve been naughty or nice over the past year – but of what you’ve accomplished...and where you need to focus your time, attention, and energy to set yourself up for success in 2020.

To help you do that, my suggestion is for you to conduct the following 7 “Productivity Inventories” before the end of the year:

1.     GOALS inventory

2.     PERSONAL inventory

3.     ENVIRONMENTAL inventory

4.     RELATIONSHIP inventory

5.     FINANCIAL inventory

6.     TIME inventory

7.     SELF-DEVELOPMENT inventory

Let’s get started:

 1.     GOALS inventory

Stephen Covey’s second habit (from his classic bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) is “Begin with the end in mind” – which reminds us to always start things off with a vision and a goal. But my suggestion here is to flip this phrase around to: “End with the beginning in mind.” In other words, go all the way back to the beginning of this year – to your list of 2019 New Years’ resolutions – and benchmark against where you are now:

Which goals and resolutions did you accomplish; which ones are you still working on; which ones haven’t you even started on yet; which ones should you transfer forward to your 2020 list; and which ones should you simply discard?

When doing this reflection exercise the key to suceess, here, is this: Recognize, appreciate, be grateful for, and celebrate the things that you DID accomplish this year…rather than regretting and beating yourself up over the things that you didn’t. Setting goals and making resolutions are valuable exercises in terms of providing direction, focus, motivation, and inspiration. But keep in mind that while it would have been nice to be able to check everything off your list, it’s more important and productive to focus on the positive and give yourself credit for your accomplishments rather than dwelling on where you fell short. 

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden put it this way: "Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

If you did that, congratulations! If not, well…this is the time of year when you get to wipe the slate clean and give yourself permission to start fresh on January 1st.

2.     PERSONAL inventory

How are you doing? And how are you feeling? Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? When was the last time you paused to reflect and ask yourself those questions?

When I was a kid, I remember my grandparents always used to say, “If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything” – and as you get older, I think you really start to appreciate how true this saying is.

So this is the perfect time of year for what I call "Reflection, Introspection, & Connection": Looking backward; looking inward; and looking forward.

Hit the pause button and take some time to reflect on how your year went. Look inward, and take stock of where you are and how you are now. And look forward to taking your game, your career, and your life to the next level in the coming year.

When thinking about your New Year’s resolutions for the new year, keep in mind that it's best not to make it an “impossible dreams” wish list, but a list of actual, realistic, impactful commitments to your own personal and professional development. As the dictionary defines it, a “resolution” is “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” And just as you might do with your performance goals at work for the coming year, be sure to make your personal 2019 goals “SMART”: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-related.” (I know that there are different variations on this popular acronym, but you get the point.)

True personal story: Back in August of 2015 -- a little over 3 years ago -- I kind of started to outgrow the waistline of all my pants and belts…and I had some less-than-favorable lab results. So (with my wife’s incredible support), on September 1st of that year I made a serious commitment to take on a “30-Day Challenge” to try to lose some weight and get my bad lab numbers back down to normal. It definitely wasn’t easy, but I am proud to report that after setting some “SMART” goals for myself and working incredibly hard at it, I turned this 30-day challenge into a 90-day challenge – and ended up losing 30 pounds and reducing my waist size from a 38 to a 34 for the first time in 20 years...and I reduced my weight from an all-time high of 235 to a slim-and-trim 199.5! And, as of this writing, 3 years later (despite a couple of brief, temporary back-slides), I've maintained those numbers ever since. Believe me, not slipping back into bad habits is a daily struggle, but I feel much better about myself than I used to, and am committed to this lifestyle change for the long-term sake of my physical and mental health.

I’ve found that the key is to start small, and take it one day at a time. You’re trying to reduce stress and increase your wellness, not the other way around. And life is stressful enough as it is without adding to it.

So what is ONE THING you can do that you’ve been putting off that would instantly make you feel better about yourself if you could just make the time and take the time to do it? Whatever it is, NOW is as good a time as any to, as Nike would put it, “Just do it!” I know it's easier said, than done...but if you put your mind to it, it can be done.

3.     ENVIRONMENTAL inventory

I've found that a cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind. So one of the best things you can do for yourself is to declutter, organize, and clean up your work and living areas.

Step one is to just get rid of stuff. Purge as much as you can. We all have too much junk around. So try to minimize and simplify. Those piled-up magazines and newspapers and articles that you’ve been meaning to read for the past two years…admit it – you’re probably not going to get around to them. So skim them, maybe electronically scan the ones you may want to save, and recycle the rest.

Clean up your desk area, as well as your computer desktop and your email inbox. Do an inventory of your office supplies. Re-order and re-stock printer paper, cartridges, etc., BEFORE you need them. Clear out and/or label old files, box things up and put them in storage or get rid of them. Create as much room as possible – both in your mind and in your workspace – to make it easier for you to think and to work.

And the clothes you haven’t worn in years, now is a great time to donate them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or the New York Cares Coat Drive. It’s a win-win: You regain extra space (and a tax deduction), and someone who probably needs it more than you will benefit from the stuff in your closet that you may have forgotten that you even own.

And my top suggestion, the best thing you can do (if you’re not doing it already), is to back up your data to the cloud and/or to an external hard drive. Believe me, you’ll be glad you did. It seems like common sense and not need mentioning, but “Common sense is not always common practice” and I’ve heard way too many sad and regretful horror stories from friends and clients who have lost irreplaceable and invaluable documents, files, photos, and videos.

In short, to create space for growth, you must first – as the ancient Zen saying goes – “empty your cup.”

4.     RELATIONSHIP inventory

As I talked about in my “Thinks-giving” post, this is the perfect time of year to re-connect with and acknowledge the people in our lives who matter most. However, it is also a good time to think about dropping from our lives the people who don’t. I’m talking about the users and takers, and the Grinches and Scrooges, who are just dragging us down. Life is too short to invest time, energy, and emotion into people who are not willing to at least meet us half way. Difficult as it may be to cut these ties, toxic relationships not only preoccupy your attention and continuously let you down, but in doing so they take an ever-increasingly destructive toll on both your mental and physical health, as well as your self-esteem.

As for those truly important people in your life, look for opportunities to connect or reconnect with them -- not just on social media, but in real life as well. Reach out and make a plan to get together. There’s never a perfect time, so if it’s really important to both of you to maintain this relationship – whether it’s business or personal – you really just have to make the time and take the time to do it.

As Polonius said to Hamlet: “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.”

Nicely said, P-Man!

In other words: Which is more important to do next year: add 500 more Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, Twitter followers, and “new-hatched, unfledged comrades” to your cyber world…or to get together with 50 significant people in the "real" world who you genuinely like and care about…and who sincerely like and care about you? Those are the people you need to “grapple…unto thy soul with hoops of steel”!

As my father always used to advise me: “Never eat lunch at your desk. Take a break, get out of the office, take a walk around the block, and grab a bite with someone.” In this fast-paced world in which we can spend eight hours a day hunched over a computer and another eight hours staring down at our phones, it seems -- more than ever -- that using your lunch hour to slow down, recharge, reflect, and connect (even if, sometimes, it’s just reconnecting with yourself) is sound advice.

5.     FINANCIAL inventory

The end of the year is a good time to assess how you did in terms of income, savings, expenditures, investments, etc., as well as figuring out your budget, and exploring possible ways to cut back on expenses and reduce your financial stresses next year.

One potentially time-saving and stress-reducing financial suggestion: Take some time this month (yes, this month!) to start on your taxes. Seriously. (And I’m not saying that just because my father was an IRS agent for 35 years.) You probably can’t complete them yet, but you can at least start getting things in order by gathering all your year-end paystubs and receipts and sorting them into categories. Why wait ‘til April? As per Covey’s first Habit: “Be Proactive,” you know you’re going to have to do it in a few months, anyway. So, if you can get a jump on things and knock some of it off now while there’s no pressure and you have a little extra downtime during the holiday season, get the ball rolling. Believe me, three months from now you’ll be glad you did.

I love the saying, “Do something today that your future self will thank you for”-- and this is a great example of that. Or, as management guru Peter Drucker said, “Planning [including financial planning] is not about future decisions…but about the future of present decisions.” So seek to make wise decisions today that “the Future You” is going to feel good about.

6.     TIME inventory

One of my other favorite quotes by Drucker is that “Time is the scarcest resource; if it is not managed, then nothing else can be.” If you’re always asking yourself “Where did the time go?” then focusing on better time management might be a worthwhile activity. There’s no such thing as “work/life balance” anymore; in this 24/7/365 always-connected global world we live in today, the best we can do is a more efficient and effective job of “work/life integration.”

Do you have notes and reminders written down in twenty different places? On post-its, on a bulletin board, a whiteboard, in your phone, etc. If so, you may want to consolidate and centralize, unify and simplify.

One way to do this is to create a “Master To-Do List” that has EVERYTHING on it in one place. There’s no “one right way” to do this, and it doesn’t matter if it’s electronic or on paper…as long as it’s a system that makes sense to you and works for you. It should be a living, breathing document that you’ll be modifying throughout the year. It’s always a great feeling to be able to cross things off the list with a feeling of “mission accomplished!”  

One other tip that I find extremely useful is to map out your year visually so as to get a big picture perspective of the next 13 months (I like to extend into the following January; again, thinking a few steps ahead). It’s one thing to have all your appointments entered into an electronic calendar; it’s another thing to be able to graphically lay out and mentally picture your schedule as a visual road map. 

For a list of my top time management tips, please see my post, “Start the New Year Off Right with 7 Simple Productivity and Time Management Tips.”

Again, it doesn’t matter what system you use to manage your time; it only matters that you have one, that you maintain it, and that the process itself creates less – not more – work and stress for you…and that it serves to enhance both your efficiency and your effectiveness.

And, lastly, as three of the biggest time-wasters and stress-inducers in life are “indecision,” “procrastination,” and “perfectionism,” I am always reminded of one of my all-time favorite blog posts by Seth Godin – and probably his shortest, which simply said: “You don’t need more time…you just need to decide.”

7.     SELF-DEVELOPMENT inventory

My father wrote in my high school yearbook: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest, ‘til the good is better, and the better, best.” I know he didn’t make it up, but it’s one of those things that dads tend to say. And it’s always stayed with me.

So, with that in mind, what do you want to get better at next year? What books have you been wanting to read? What TED Talks, YouTube videos, and other online courses have you been meaning to watch? What knowledge would you like to acquire? What skills would you like to develop?

And whether it’s personal or career-related, ask yourself, What’s holding you back? The most likely excuse (or explanation) is “lack of time”; but we all have the same 525,600 minutes a year…so it really all comes down to how we choose to spend (or, rather, “invest”) them.

So what's the "ROI" of how you are choosing to spent your precious time?

One tool to help you think about where you’re currently spending time vs. where you’d like to is my Passion/Skill Matrix model. Ideally, you want to spend as much time as possible in your Sweet Spot and/or your Growth Zone, and as little time as possible in your Default Zone and/or Failure Zone. So I highly recommend taking some quiet time to fill out your own Passion/Skill Matrix to help yourself maximize your performance, your productivity, and your potential in the coming year.

In closing, conducting the above 7-part inventory definitely takes some time and effort.

But aren’t you – and your future – worth it?

We all know the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; and, so, the best first step you can take might be to sit down to ponder these 7 questions and map out your year ahead.

Changing old habits and starting new ones is difficult. But for inspiration you may want to keep in mind this exchange between young Kris Kringle and the Winter Warlock from the holiday classic, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”:

Winter Warlock: “I really am a mean and despicable creature at heart, you know. It's so difficult to... [sigh] really change.”

Kris Kringle: “Difficult? Why, why look here. Changing from bad to good's as easy as...taking your first step!”

So if this all seems overwhelming and daunting, just remember to put one foot in front of the other – and soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor…and out the door.

I hope this list of 7 inventories helped, at least in some small way, to shine a bright red light on some key areas of focus so that next year, in whatever you do, you’ll get the new year off to a flying start.

And who knows, perhaps -- like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer -- someday you, too, will go "go down in his-to-ry"!